“A new doctor had been sent for, Lazzaro of Pavia, who had administered to Lorenzo a pulverized mixture of diamonds and pearls. This hitherto infallible medicine had failed to help.”

“They had painted in a grand rush to keep intact the purity of their first impression, the mood in which the motif had been conceived.”

“He had been standing still; for an artist, one of the more painful forms of death.”

“He had never believed that spirituality had to be anemic or aesthetic.”

“God is imagined as a rich, old gentleman who is very happy that things are going so smooth here on Earth that he had created.”

“The paintings that laughed at him merrily from the walls were like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed of. Gone were the flat, thin surfaces. Gone was the sentimental sobriety. Gone was the brown gravy in which Europe had been bathing its pictures for centuries. Here were pictures riotously mad with the sun. With light and air and throbbing vivacity. Paintings of ballet girls backstage, done in primitive reds, greens, and blues thrown next to each other irreverantly. He looked at the signature. Degas.”

“He had always loved God. In his darkest hours he cried out, "God did not create us to abandon us.”